The first testimony (story of hope) comes from one of my sorority sisters. This summer we endured IVF together! Our calendar (days of appointments, medication, retrieval, transfer, etc) were literally two days apart! You don't wish infertility for anyone, but you are thankful to have someone by your side! She was a huge prayer warrior for Brandon and I. We updated each other daily with how we were feeling and what to pray for etc. Read the rest to see where she is now!
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We are Brittani and Adam Hardin. We got married in 2014, and a few years later-we decided we were ready to start a family.
In 2017-we began trying to get pregnant. We tried for several months, with no luck-and I (Brittani) was diagnosed with severe endometriosis. A few months later-I had surgery to remove several cysts and scarring caused by the Endo in hopes of increasing our chances of getting pregnant. We were told our best chances were in the 6 months following the surgery.
Unfortunately-after another 6 months, we were still not pregnant and were referred to a fertility specialist in January of 2019. We began our journey at Alabama Fertility Specialists (AFS) and after two rounds of fertility medicine we found out we were pregnant. Unfortunately, a few short weeks later we lost that sweet baby. And decided to take a few months off from the doctor to give ourselves time to heal and process what happened.
A few months later, I had another surgery to remove severe Endometriosis and large cysts from my ovaries. After surgeries-we did a total of 7 IUI’s (around $500-$800/round depending on monitoring and medications) all of which were unfortunately unsuccessful.
IUI- Intrauterine Insemination
The next step recommended by our fertility specialist was IVF-which unfortunately is not a covered procedure by insurance in Alabama which led us to wondering how in the world we would come up with $15,000-$17,000 in just 2 months.
IVF-In Vitro Fertilization
Luckily, we have an amazing group of friends and family that prayed and rallied around us and assisted us with multiple fundraisers that kept us from having to pay anything out of pocket.
This process was a crazy, wild ride. Starting with birth control for a month, then 1 shot of Lupron in my stomach daily for 2 weeks. Then we added Gonal-F and Menopur (along with Lupron)-all three in my stomach each night for 1.5 weeks. Then it was time for retrieval. We had our egg retrieval July 21, 2021, and our transfer 5 days later (July 26, 2021). After the transfer-the dreaded Progesterone shots begin for the next 10 weeks.
Then comes the LONGGGGG wait for our blood test to *hopefully* confirm pregnancy on August 4, 2021.
I am the most impatient person EVER and decided to take a pregnancy test on Sunday August 1 just to see what it would say. Then I took 4 more…just to convince myself that the test was right. I AM PREGNANT-the blood test confirmed a few days later.
As exciting as that is-its still scary. Will this pregnancy stick? Is this time REALLY going to be different? Can I get excited and tell people yet? Or should I just not tell anyone incase something happens?
Since confirming our pregnancy, we have had 4 ultrasound to check on our sweet baby and have since graduated from our fertility specialist and now see my regular OB-which was a very bittersweet moment. We are currently 14 weeks pregnant and baby is growing perfectly.
Infertility is weird. Its hard. Its scary. Its all of the emotions at some point in time. A literal roller coaster.
I pray every day for all of the ladies (and their families) struggling through this. Seeing the baby announcements. The happy stories…and wondering when it will be THEIR time. No one should ever have to endure the pain and sadness that comes with infertility and infant loss. If anyone is struggling-reach out. We are here and we understand what you are going through. You are not alone and your blessing and rainbow is coming.
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